Growing Up in an Alcoholic Home: how to recognise and break your denial
One of the most frustrating and baffling symptoms of addiction is denial. The affected persons do not appear to recognise their problem and therefore resist any effort to help.
Unfortunately, denial begins to spread to others in the family too. That’s why addiction is often called a ‘’family disease’’.
Those who grew up with alcoholism may have lived in a world of denial for so long that distinguishing everyday stress from the effects of the disease can seem quite impossible. They wonder if they have problems that are different from those other people have. Doesn’t everyone feel insecure or experience a crisis? Denial is essentially an unconscious process in which knowledge of the impact of what is going on is gradually suppressed until its consciousness is lost entirely. Denial and confusion become intertwined, and family denial increases the confusion. The family members may mistake healthy self-esteem for selfishness or wonder if life in their families was ”really that bad” (since everyone else insists it wasn’t).
Some of them found their way into Al-Anon when the alcoholic in their life joined Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). Some stood alone, the only one who suspected anything was wrong, while other family members became incensed that they even contemplated going to Al-Anon. Some joined a self-help group because therapists sent them.
Do you have a problem?
How do they know if they belong if we are not sure? Al-Anon is a fellowship of people who feel uncomfortable about another person’s drinking. They are people living with sober alcoholics, people living with active in their homes, a friend of people who seem to have problems with drinking, and people who have severed all relationships with alcoholics or drinkers of any sort. They are a varied lot.
Recovery can begin when we recognise that someone else’s drinking has affected us. How can we tell? We have found the answers to the following questions from the Al-Anon leaflet, Did You Grow Up with a Problem Drinker? Helped them decide. They might help you too:
- Do you constantly seek approval and affirmation?
- Do you fail to recognise your accomplishments?
- Do you fear criticism?
- Do you overextend yourself?
- Have you had problems with your own compulsive behaviour?
- Do you have a need for perfection?
- Are you uneasy when your life is going smoothly, continually anticipating problems?
- Do you feel more alive in the midst of crisis?
- Do you still feel responsible for others, as you did for the problem drinker in your life?
- Do you care for others easily, yet find it difficult to care for yourself?
- Do you isolate yourself from other people?
- Do you respond with fear to authority figures and angry people?
- Do you feel that individuals and society in general are taking advantage of you?
- Do you have trouble with intimate relationships?
- Do you confuse pity with love, as you did with the problem drinker?
- Do you attract and/ or seek people who tend to be compulsive and/ or abusive?
- Do you cling to relationships because you are afraid of being alone?
- Do you find it difficult to identify and express your emotions? Do you think parental drinking may have affected you?
If you answered ”yes” to some or all of the above questions, Al-Anon or a family therapist might also help you.
Childhood pain in adulthood
Many people have found that the disease of alcoholism (or drug addiction or gambling) disrupted their youth and continues to affect their adult lives in both subtle and blatant ways. Because of the disease, their parents could not give them what they needed as children to fully mature. The lack of emotional grounding of adult children of alcoholics sometimes takes the disguise of excessive responsibility. They can appear highly mature and serious, but they lack confidence and feel driven in reality.
The fear that accompanies the disease of alcoholism or drug addiction can create difficulty in talking about their problems, trusting themselves and others, and feeling their authentic emotions. Not talking, not trusting, or not feeling may have helped them survive as children, but they kept them stuck as adults in patterns that did not work. They achieve the same unhappy results as long as they remain caught in childhood patterns of relationships that they learned in alcoholic homes.
Moving on to maturity
Repeating old behaviours while expecting new results is one form of insanity we learn to stop with the help of a therapist and/ or going to Al-Anon. Before a behaviour can be controlled, however, it must be recognised. This requires breaking the denial that they have rigged around those unhappy years to keep their secrets hidden from themselves. Denial is broken when they quit hoping for a better past, accept the reality of what happened, and set about creating a different present. In therapy, they learn alternate approaches to their problems. As they attempt to change, they are encouraged to grow at their own pace and use the suggestions that work for them. From this, self-responsibility and individualism – essential aspects of maturing – are developed.
Understanding alcoholism as a disease allows them to take it out of the realm of blame and shame, freeing them to see their own mistakes.
Now they are ready to discover a world of healing and wholeness! Living serenely amid life’s challenges is a spiritual gift we would like to share!
If you live with an alcoholic or have grown up in an alcoholic home, call 900085001 and get an appointment with a therapist!